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For a species that supposedly had little capacity for emotion, Sshizna sure felt pissed.

She wasn’t sure what the worst part of her predicament was. Being captured by one of these realm-splitting loons was bad enough, as was hearing exactly what purpose she had been captured for — but to then be forgotten about like some substitutable ingredient for a common brew? Absolutely inexcusable.

Sshizna wasn’t sure how long her captivity had lasted. Time had long since lost all meaning to her — an absolute irony, considering what her studies had focused on prior to Prismeer’s doom — as she had no means to keep track of it. No sun, no stars, no sounds of repetitive routines outside the door. Just darkness, silence punctured at random, and anger.

Until today.

Today was peculiar.

It had started with what sounded like a group of disgruntled visitors, followed by a short skirmish between a witchy shadow and a lornling (good riddance to the cursed thing). And now, footsteps.

Sshizna straightened her back from where she had been sitting, hunched over the lornling’s body mid-dissection. The steps didn’t sound like they belonged to a regular occupant of the hag’s house. They sounded foreign, new, promising. 

Hope was an insidious thing, Sshizna knew, yet she could hardly keep it at bay now. She wiped her viscera-covered hands on the hem of her shirt and made her way closer to the stairs, to the extent the walls of her room allowed. She listened, intent, then weighed her options. To speak up and make herself known to a potential enemy? Or to wait, and see, and — potentially lose out on a rare chance of salvation.

She didn’t need to think for long.

[color=#C5AF3F]“You there!” [/color]She hissed at the strangers through the door. Her voice was hoarse from unuse, words sticking to her throat on the way out. [color=#C5AF3F]“Approach, ssstrangers. Ssset me free, and you ssshall not regret it.”[/color][/color]